Wednesday, September 15, 2010

David McMillian

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful pic. What is his relationship with the Brian McMillan? Does he still works with wild animals? Is this the "Flying tiger act"? Finaly back some pics of cage acts ! Very nice Wade,

Thomas

Wade G. Burck said...

Thomas,
I knew you would get a "chubby!!!" He is Brian McMillian's brother. Both David and Brian worked for GGW and came over to the United States with him when he came to Ringling. David was doing movie work with animals a few years ago, but I don't know about now. Yes he called the act the "flying tigers", and they did move very, very fast and loud. He used to have a someone drive a motorcycle to the arena with a sidecar that he and a tiger named Bombay used to ride in. John Cox later took over the act before he came to Hawthorn. The act was always in a park in New Jersey(Great Adventure) or at Circus World, and only did a circus once, in Washington D. C. It was too big and heavy to haul with a circus.
Wade Burck

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the information.
Did you found it a nice act?
I'm doing research together with Gary Robinson, a very nice guy who knows a lot about England's animal acts and circuses, about Mary Chipperfield's cage acts. It's very difficult cause she had so many acts and changed them the whole time but we have already a lot of information. Did you know the act that Stefano had at Monte Carlo were all old Chipperfield tigers ?
Did you liked the flying tiger act ?

Regards,
Thomas

Anonymous said...

Wade,
is animal planet host Brandon Mcmillam related to these two men?
Bjorn

GaryHill said...

I remember seeing David at the Japanese Village and Deer Park in Calf. back in the summer of 73. His tigers were all young and he had some badass German Shepards that ruled the cage!

Wade G. Burck said...

Thomas,
I see you have been busy adding Mary Chipperfield pictures to you blog. Real nice job. Anyone interested should check out Thomas's blog "Thomas Bohner's Cage Act History" in the right hand column.
Yes I like David's act alot. It had 22 tigers, at the time the largest in the United States, and moved very, very fast and they were loud and noisy. David pushed them pretty hard. There weren't a lot of "muscle tricks" but a lot of group tricks. He did a jump over with two tigers laying down beside each other, and jumping over one another. That is where I got the idea to do a leap frog for the first time, with the tigers standing up, using a gold and a white one. GGW had one tiger stand and one leap frog over. I thought it would be different and not copying so I trained Frosty and Khan to stand and Baby leap froged over them, then they jumped over each other.
Wade

Wade G. Burck said...

Bjorn,
No they are not related to the fellow on Animal Planet.
Wade

Wade G. Burck said...

Gary,
After he left Japanese Deer park and went to Marineworld Africa USA he had a German Shepard in the act. It sat on a high pedestal surrounded by tigers.
Wade